Who Is...tom Emanski

Where you've seen him: In those ubiquitous commercials for the Emanski video series, his all instructional tapes.

Why you've paid attention: Because anyone who tunes into ESPN has heard about how Emanski coached his teams to "back-to-back-to-back AAU national championships!" The spots have aired every day since the mid-1990s.

R�sum�: In 1982, Emanski, then an IBM technician, founded the Baseball World training center in Altamonte Springs, Fla. For the first few years, Baseball World trainees got traditional hardball teaching—with mediocre results. Emanski, who never played above American Legion ball, set about devising new training methods based on analyses done by physicists who watched video of big leaguers. That led to his first tape, Teaching the Mechanics of the Major League Swing. To peddle Teaching, Emanski went into Ron Popeil mode, buying commercial time on local cable channels. Solid sales led to eight more videos. Although Emanski's system has its doubters, it has produced one major leaguer, catcher Eddie Taubensee, who appears as an 18-year-old on that first tape. As for those AAU tides, they're for real: From 1990 to '92, Emanski led three Florida teams to championships.